Radical Evil on Trial.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara
• Position: Review

Radical Evil on Trial, by Carlos Santiago Nino. New Haven: Yale University Press Paperback, 1999.

A professor of law at the University of Buenos Aires and a visiting professor at Yale, the late Carlos Santiago Nino served as an adviser to President Raul Alfonsin during Argentina's difficult transition from military dictatorship to democracy. In Radical Evil on Trial he offers a firsthand account of developments of the 1980s, in particular, the 1985 war crimes trial of junta leaders.

Massive human rights violations, says Nino, involve what Kant called "radical evil," that is, "offense against human dignity so widespread, persistent, and organized that normal moral assessment seems inappropriate."

These affronts to the very essence of humanity seem to surpass our ability to punish them, for they transcend the measures normally applied to common criminals. In dealing with "radical evil," criminal law is inadequate.

A brief historical survey, argues Nino, will show that the most common legal response to massive human rights violations is blanket pardons or simply silence--or else, petty officials are disciplined for atrocities conceived by others.

Yet, in 1985 the Argentine government did in fact investigate and try persons responsible for some of the most egregious human rights violations in modern Latin American history, committed by the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. This gut-wrenching process ended when all the accused, even those found guilty, were pardoned.

The value of submitting perpetrators of "radical evil" to legal scrutiny continues to be debated. However, argues Nino, the very fact that the Alfonsin government undertook such an endeavor, relying not on armed force but moral appeal, is remarkable. The trials had a salutary effect on Argentines, he concludes, reminding them of the horrors that can take place when societies forego the rule of law. Furthermore, Alfonsin accomplished these inquiries without alienating the military or undermining the democratic process. As a result, the military itself began to change, "accepting a less holistic view of the...